In today's television market many consumers pay a fee to program providers for a certain set of available channels. Usually the fee charged is related to the total number and type of channels being made available to the consumer. Certain channels may be more expensive per unit time than others based on the demand of that type of programming.
When one purchases a collection of program channels from a supplier, it is understood that all the channels in that contracted set would be available at any time that the consumer chooses to view them. Therefore, if a subset or the totality of the agreed collection of channels should become unavailable for any reason, including equipment failure, the program provider has failed to deliver the agreed upon product. While a consumer may be viewing only one of these channels at any given moment, the expectation is that any of the other channels included in the contract are available for use.
Service providers may credit a consumer's account to compensate for interruptions of service. Typically, however, such a credit is provided only after request by a subscribing customer. Cable and satellite television agreements typically entitle a customer to a credit, upon timely request by the customer, for prolonged or repeated outages. Some states mandate credits for certain outages, but only when timely requested by a consumer. For example, by statute, Connecticut (Conn. Gen. Stat. §16-331w), Maine (30-A M.R.S. §3010), West Virginia (W. Va. Code §24D-1-16), New Jersey (N.J. Stat. §48:5A-11a) and New Hampshire (RSA 53-C:3-c) require credits to offset certain outages when requested by consumers.
A problem with the aforementioned contractual and statutory framework for credits is that a consumer may not know when an outage occurs, or the duration of an outage, much less the frequency of outages. Outages may occur when a consumer is not watching television or not watching a channel affected by the outage. Even if a consumer observes that a channel is unavailable, the consumer may not know when the outage began and may not detect when the outage ends. Thus, the duration of the outage is unknown. The consumer probably will also not know each channel for which service has been interrupted or the frequency of interruption. Without such knowledge, a consumer cannot accurately report outages and secure credit.
A tool is needed to detect and record outages, the duration of outages and the frequency of outages for each subscribed channel. The tool should not interfere with or require modification of current cable or satellite television equipment. The tool should also not interfere with a user's use and enjoyment of a television.
The invention is directed to overcoming one or more of the problems and solving one or more of the needs as set forth above.